Plants Plants Plants -- Blooms Blooms Blooms -- Rain Rain Rain

Dahl Daisy

New additions to the flower beds from Shades of Green in far north Frisco, a wonderful stop, a locally owned nursery that really does promote well adapted or native plants for the North Texas Area.

Turks Cap and Xemenia for the Island Bed.

Yarrow, Salvia and Mexican Butterfly Weed for East, West and Terrace Bed.

Lamb’s Ear for the Terrace Bed.

Flaming Acanthus for the East Bed.

All the plants are flourishing, the quality was superb.

Blanket Flower

The winner in the garden continues to be the Blanket Flower, outstanding blooms and brilliant color.  The tiny Dahl Daisy is flourishing; the dianthus showed it’s pink early now followed by the skull cap.  The variety of salvias are thriving and multiplying. Seeds are shooting up sprouts so the marigolds and zinnias will be blooming when it is hot hot hot. 

Grayson County Master Garden Sale, a huge success.  A long day started out at 7 to help set up in a chilly 44 degree weather.  By the end of the day, jackets were shed and all but about 4 dozen plants were sold.  I purchased Aster and Obedient Plant.  I adopted some of the unsold plants at the end of the day, mint, lettuce sprouts, germander and a yucca.

I purchased a variety of tomato plants from a fellow MG who had to clean out his green house early, so he had a pre-sale.  They are all healthy and well established in the veggie bed.  Also purchased a wide variety of pepper plants from Sweetwater Farms along with “Organic Pest Fence” spray.

One small tomato is already set and growing and some peppers too.

Veggie Patch with pvc irrigation system

Working on the electric fence.

The battery operated electric fence is not working.  Were the batteries dead? No. Is there a short? No, it’s a bad unit so say not 1, not 2, but 3 engineers.  I need to find the receipt and go talk about an exchange without having to unstring all the wire and dig up the posts.  So, the “Organic Pest Fence” plus the strands of wire are keeping the pests out of the veggie patch for now.

For our 34^th anniversary the hanging basket was purchased to adorn our view and it is a lovely mix of deep pink and yellow blooms.

It has been dry but the last few weeks some much needed rain fell at Lake Texoma.  We recorded a little over 3 inches of much needed moisture.  The lake level is at 613.50’ the lowest level I remember ever, makes for a great beach and lots of long, long walks.

Items on the “To Do” List

The veggie patch needs weeding --- already! Yep. Already.

Finish the bridge to no where and lay more flagstone.

Work on the bunkhouse.

Sit on the veranda and watch the grass grow!

The Bridge

Another vision of David’s.  I just nodded my head and said “Hmmm, ok”.  He started talking about a bridge last year, he was going to build it from lumber.  Well … as luck would have it, Sam’s stocked these cutesy garden bridges.  They put them on display right after Christmas.  One weekend in February the weather was atrocious, my allergies were keeping me indoors and David was short on projects.  He had to make a run to the store for groceries, so I told him now would be a good time to get that cute bridge we saw at Sam’s.  He was reluctant but agreed.  Low and behold, he bought the second to the last bridge in stock.  Whew… glad we got it early.

 Now to finish the blocking and shoring, the backfill, add stones to the 'creek bed' and the pavestone path to the bridge.  Yes, we do actually finish projects, most of the time.

Is it the bridge that goes no where?  You’ll just have to wait and see what the future plans may hold.

The Great Wall Project

David had a vision – an ambitious vision.  I was skeptical and afraid of the amount of labor but we are almost there.

Tommy, David and SaraBeth laid out the baseline and foundation.  From there the wall went up easily.  Then the backfilling process began. 

Tommy & SaraBeth

David, Tommy and SaraBeth working hard.

Tommy is giving directions.

Today the wall is complete; the backfill is at 90%.  All that is left is to extend the backporch with flagstone and build the fence.

Spring Projects Aplenty

March Winds bring April Showers

Where are the showers, the gusty spring winds continue to blow with very little rain or moisture.
We’ve been very busy in the yard. 

Yards -- Plural

We tackled Jen’s front yard in Richardson with a plan.  She has a gorgeous red oak tree that shades her east facing house.  The original shrubs were straggly and old, so out they went last winter.

We mostly followed the plan… a plan is a guide, only a place to start.

So for her shady bed (since she had her trees trimmed last year they are now a partial shade bed) we first dug up the soil and added 2 CY of premium bedding mix.

The plant list

Compact Nandina

Red Columbine 

Dwarf Hosta

Coral Bells

Forest Pansy Redbud

The best and easiest to use web resource for finding “Earthkind” or well adapted low water use plants is

North Central Texas Smartscape

http://www.txsmartscape.com/NorthCentralTX/main.asp

We had a fun day working and planting in the yard.  Aunt Linda from Houston, Cousin Kristin, Matthew and Gabriel, Tommy and SaraBeth and of course Mom and Dad were all on hand  to slave in her yard and enjoy the pizza.

Enjoy your yard.

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